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Tom Alfia | The Department of Political Science

Tom Alfia

Tom Alfia
Tom
Alfia
Doctoral student
Dissertation Project Title:" “The Raison D'être of Politics”: Freedom in the Thought of Hannah Arendt"
Doctoral Advisors Prof. Dan Avnon, Dr. Yiftah Elazar
Freedom is one of the central concepts of Hannah Arendt’s philosophy, however Arendt readers usually find it "more than ordinarily obscure". The ambition of my dissertation is to provide a comprehensive study of Arendt’s conception of freedom. This enterprise is important for two reasons: first, the absence of a thorough analysis on one of the central concepts in Arendt’s philosophy is a dangerous ground for misinterpretations of her work. Second, many political theorists who utilize Arendt’s writing, do so in order to understand and influence current political problems, e.g. the “refugee problem” or the problem of “the right to have rights”. I argue that a more accurate understanding of Arendt’s conception of freedom will allow a more precise diagnosis of these pressing problems and therefore help prescribe better solutions for them.